SINGAPORE — If there is one thing Darker Than Wax wants audiences to take away from this year’s Singapore International Jazz Festival, or Sing Jazz, it is that jazz music really is for everyone.

The Singapore-based electronic music label, whose core team includes DJs Kaye, Funk Bast*rd, Rah, William J, Marco Weibel and Daryl C, is working with Sing Jazz to curate and host the festival’s line-up for its opening night (March 4).

“I think there is a very sad misconception about jazz music that it is complicated, it is dense, and it is too intelligent for the average listener. So, one big takeaway we want audiences to have is to just realise that jazz music does not always have these qualities,” said Darker Than Wax co-founder Kaye, whose real name is Kevin Guoh. He feels that while jazz music can be “extremely complicated”, a lot of it, quite simply, “comes from the heart”.

This year’s Sing Jazz will see acts like Canadian band BadBadNotGood (BBNG), Singaporean singer-songwriter Charlie Lim, Australian quartet Hiatus Kaiyote, American musician Taylor McFerrin as well as Darker Than Wax-Sound System perform on the first night. Other acts performing at the three-day festival include British soul singer Joss Stone, Cuban jazz act Buena Vista Social Club, British acid jazz band Incognito, British outfit Level 42 and local musicians Jeremy Monteiro and The Good Life Project.

And for Darker Than Wax, the hope is that the acts they have invited to perform at Sing Jazz will appeal to an audience that isn’t already familiar with jazz music.

“Jazz is not a static art form, it is always evolving, always growing, always morphing. It’s probably one of the only musical genres that never stays the same,” Kaye explained. “When audiences come to an event like this, and they get close to the music, and they like it, then they can go read up more about the histories and trace back to who these guys were influenced by, and how their music came to be.

“Then I think we have done our job, because it’s making people curious about discovering the past, and they are enriching their own musical knowledge.”

Besides Sing Jazz, Darker Than Wax has also spent the last few years working to enliven the music scene here in Singapore. The music collective, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this year, does everything from event curation to audio branding. Darker Than Wax also travels to cities around the world, including London, Tokyo and Berlin, to showcase its work.

According to Kaye, the response to its efforts have been encouraging. The musician says the label will soon be working with Casio on a limited edition watch, and often gets e-mails from students hoping to score internships with them.

“It’s great to throw a party and have people anywhere from 18 to 40 (years of age) come in and enjoy our events,” Kaye said. “We play the more modern sounds that appeal to younger ears. We play anything from the 1960s and the 1970s. And we will throw music out from Africa to South America.”

He continued: “It’s great to expose the younger audience to older music and make the link that it all comes from somewhere. If they go back and search (for more music), then I will say our job is done.”

Sing Jazz Festival 2016 will be held from March 4 to 6 at the Marina Bay Sands Event Plaza. For more details, please visit http://www.sing-jazz.com.